Locke's Second Treatise, Chapters 12 and 13 | Analysis and Critique

Chapters 12 and 13 of Locke's Second Treatise of Government cover the executive and federative powers, their goals, and their limitations.

The chief point to remember when reading this chapter is that the legislature is supreme insofar as it serves the ends for which the people created it, but the people (in a Lockean system) maintain the power of altering or abolishing the legislature should it fail to serve their purposes.

This is moderate but insufficient protection from government overreach and tyranny, as the historical record clearly shows.

With those points in mind, Locke explains the extent and special requirements of the executive and what he calls the federative (i.e., involved in interactions with external groups/commonwealths) powers. He maintains, with some haziness unfortunately, that the executive branch is subordinate to the legislature, but there are some weak points in his arguments that give clever executives opportunities to overstep their bounds...

...And Locke tragically supports some of those steps, with a rather fatalistic rationalization.

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Intro music by Praz Khanal via Unsplash. https://pixabay.com/users/prazkhanal-24653570/